


I'm With Her

by Skyepilot



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Betrayal, Canon Compliant, Comfort, Coping, Drinking, Emotional, F/M, Fitz is a villain, Friendship/Love, Humor, Hydra (Marvel), Male-Female Friendship, anti Fitz, anti Leo Fitz, this is not a Fitz friendly story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 12:48:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14165172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/pseuds/Skyepilot
Summary: Coulson will always be there for Daisy, even when the team doesn't have much to say about Fitz experimenting on her. Post 5.15.





	I'm With Her

"No, I don't regret it! Because it's the only way to stop the future we saw, from, from-"

"By experimenting on Daisy? Against her will?!" he interrupts, clenching his teeth together to hold back. "Fitz, Daisy is a part of your team. She's your fr-"

"You shot her with an ICER!" he yells back, throwing his hands in the air. "You shot her and made her come back here knowing what could happen. At least she had the sense to try remove herself from the equation."

He stares at him inside the pod on the Z1, now that he's managed to get free from HYDRA, and has a window to catch up with the team, discover why Fitz has been separated from the rest of them and why no one wants to talk about it.

"I don't leave people behind," he tells him, shaking his head. "We have no way of knowing if anything we do will change what we saw. If we can't hold on to our own humanity-"

"Oh, spare me," he says, slamming his hands on the window between them, then tightening his fists. "You're no different than me. The choices I've had to make to keep Simmons safe. Meanwhile, Daisy can shake the world apart."

"She won't do that."

"Why?" he says in a mocking voice. "Because she's Daisy? Because she's your favorite and you've always put her first? Ahead of this team, ahead of SHIELD, and now you'll put her ahead of the entire world. It's why we'll lose. Because of you."

"You sound like Ward," he tells him in disgust. "I've heard all of these excuses before. No one blamed you for what happened in the Framework, but, we're not in the Framework anymore."

"I didn't want to hurt Daisy," he says with a groan, leaning his shoulder against the side of the pod. "But it was the only way to close the rift. How many times do I have to repeat myself?"

"Daisy would've helped you find another way. Asking her was never an option, was it? To let her choose the risk? You think you're the only one smart enough to figure it out. That you have the power to decide-"

"I _am_ the only one who figured it out," he replies blithely, shifting his eyes back to Coulson and rubbing his temples. "I know what I did. I have to live with the guilt of that. _Me._ Not you."

"You know, I never saw you as being a leader, but I would have thought at the very least, you'd turn into a decent agent. A decent man."

"Why, because it was _Daisy_?" he answers, turning around to look at him again. "If I had done this to Ward or one of those Kree, you wouldn't have cared."

"You're wrong about that."

"If I am, then I have been following the wrong man all along," he says, starting to raise his voice. "You're weak."

He watches him pacing inside the small room, putting his hands on his hips, then stops and staring back at him.

"What kind of man doesn't try to protect what he loves the most?"

Coulson doesn't answer him, he just narrows his eyes and watches him stare back.

"I will do whatever it takes," he says, pointing at himself, like he's making a threat. "Can you say the same?"

"You're wrong if you think you've been following me all along," he says with a cold smile. "Because I've been following Daisy."

That gets a reaction of out him, like he's puzzling through it trying to work it out in his brain, and then he shuts that logic off.

"Your weakness will get us all killed," he tells him, crossing his arms. "Daisy included."

"She's not going to let that happen."

 

###

  
"You look like someone ran over you with a van and then put it in reverse."

He purses his lips and glances up at her from where he's sitting on the bench in the hallway on the lower level, reduced to drinking Zima of all things.

"I just didn't see it coming," he sighs, taking a sip as she sits down next to him. "How did I not see-"

"Because none of us wanted to," she tells him, leaning her back against the wall. "After Ward, none of us wanted to see something like that happen again."

"The others, did they," he pauses for a moment. "Did they try to stop him?"

"Yes. He took out Mack, and Simmons and Deke tried to reason with him, but he programmed an LMD to be his own little goose stepping puppet."

"I knew something was wrong, when I asked you how you got your powers back, and no one said anything."

She looks away from him, down at the floor. "I might've lost my cool and quaked him," she confesses.

"That's _all_ you did?" he asks, wishing she'd done more, but that's not like Daisy. He elbows her, handing the Zima over to her. "I know I asked this before, and you can tell me to stop, but are you okay?"

"I don't know?" she asks with a shrug. "What does 'okay' mean, after everything we've been through, _are_ , going through?"

"You don't need to forgive him, Daisy."

"Wasn't planning on it," she tells him, taking a sip of the Zima. "Oh, shit, this is terrible. You're desperate."

She hands it back over to him and he shrugs pathetically and stares at it, then takes another drink.

"What did he say to you?" she asks, curiously. "You seem-"

"I would throw him off the team right now if I wasn't afraid of what he'd do on his own," he stares ahead, fixating on the wall across from them. He's not sure if he wants her to hear the rest of it.

"I know. He's scary."

"I'm sorry that I wasn't here for you," he says, turning to look at her, and it's all right there on the surface. She presses her lips together and tries to keep it together.

"I was sorry, too," she says, something catching in her chest, then she presses the edge of her sweater into the corner of an eye.

He puts the bottle down on the bench and wraps his arm around her, pulling her in close to him, resting his cheek against her head.

"How do you feel about running?"

She gives a weak little laugh, and puts her fingers on his wrist, and lets it rest there. "Maybe after we save the world? And you." Then she goes quiet, like she's thinking about it. "Where would you want to go?"

"Well, not space," he says, pulling back to see her reaction. "That's off the table."

"No space," she agrees.

"Some place where we can just...talk," he says, thoughtfully. "Where you don't have to be a superhero and I don't have to be that SHIELD guy."

She pauses for a moment, mulling something over. "Hey, maybe we can start now. Like, as practice?"

"Okay. And not forever," he goes on, tipping the bottle towards her. "I don't think forever, right?"

"Not when there are still Nazis running around and Kree trying to build an Inhuman slave army for their Confederacy. Did anyone even think about that name before they chose it?"

"Or, that's why they chose it. You want to know something else?" he waits until she looks up at him. "HYDRA had  _Oops! All Berries_."

"Why did you tell me that? That ruins it for me now."

"Misery loves company?" he says with a smirk and picks up the bottle of Zima. "Thanks for saving me, by the way."

"Yeah, of course," she says, sounding more lighthearted for a moment, and like she's a little embarrassed by the praise. "We don't leave people behind."

"It never gets old," he says with a smirk.

 

 


End file.
